February 2025

Farewell to New York’s Cordon Charge System?

Robert W.Poole Jr. Director of Transportation Policy, Reason Foundation

My first exposure to the idea of congestion pricing was in the 1970s, when future Nobel economics laureate William Vickrey and the Urban Institute were studying cordon charging for big cities such as New York. But a practical way of collecting cordon tolls without toll booths stymied progress for decades (until the advent of all-electronic tolling). Singapore’s somewhat authoritarian government was the first to implement cordon pricing, aided by an enormous tax on car ownership. But more-recent implementation of cordon tolling in Stockholm and Central London revived the idea in New York City.

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